For her achievement, Begum received the Channel I Agro Award. A total of 1,711 hectares of land across nine upazilas in Faridpur are being used for onion seed cultivation this year while it was 1,400 hectares in 2020. Farmers are cultivating various varieties of onion seed, including Rajshahi Tahirpur, Superking, Sukhsagar, BARI-4, Nasik King and also the hybrid ones. But during a visit to Vachanchar and Gobindapur village of Faridpur Sadar upazila on Friday, this correspondent found that most of the onion shoots sticking out of the ground had dried up. Some sprouts also showed signs of swarming caterpillar attacks while others failed to flower at all due to a lack of pollination.